Wouldn’t it be great to have peace to such an extent that nothing can make you stumble? The kind of peace we read of in Psalm 119:165, Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.
Here is a God sighting that taught me that kind of peace.
I’m a retired pastor serving a small church in Texas. I record my weekly sermons and send them out to the congregation and a few others who are interested. Sunday afternoon I couldn’t find the connecting piece between the recorder and my laptop and I thought I had left it on the pulpit at the church.
Monday morning I headed out to the church, which is about 30 minutes away. On the way I noticed the steering suddenly felt “stiff”. There were indicator lights coming on the dash of our old Ford Mustang, one for the battery and another I didn’t know. I was driving on a highway, speed limit about 70 mph, and the gauges were fine at that point and so I pressed on to the church.
I nearly made it. There’s a turn lane to go left and up the hill to the church. When I pulled into the turn lane the car barely came to a stop and steam poured from the hood. (By this point the temperature gauge was buried in the “H”.) I got out of the car, opened the hood and saw antifreeze all over the engine. Steam came, but no fire.
I called my wife Brenda to let her know what was going on, and then I called a church member to see if he knew of a good mechanic in Caldwell, the nearest town. He didn’t.
After a few minutes a young lady stopped her car and asked if I needed help. She offered to help me push the car into the grassy median between the two sides of the divided highway. She told me her father drove a tow truck, and he recommended a place in Caldwell.
The lady told me he was 81 years old and had a rough upbringing, but an encounter with Jesus changed his life. We called him and he sent his son and delivered me to shop. When he found out I was the pastor of that church, he told me to “keep proclaiming the Lord Jesus” and that would be payment enough. His daughter was kind and courageous to stop by the side of the road to offer help, I told him, and he told me it was the Lord Jesus who told her to stop.
I think he was right.
There’s more to this story. Like how a borrowed car was available with a bandmate in Caldwell, and how the repair was done much sooner than expected and cost much less. (In case you are wondering, the serpentine belt and pulley had broken and to those of us who are not mechanically inclined, this makes the car go.)
By the way, the missing connecting piece for my computer was not at the church. It was in the bag I at home I always kept it in, hidden in a hole in the bag!
Through it all, I felt a peace. And if I had found the connecting piece in the first place, I might have ended up broken down far from home, far from church, far from friends — but not far from God.
If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say. Psalm 124:1
Frank and Brenda are Inspire Missioners in Texas, USA.
